Plutarch’s Lives

Comparison of Pericles with Fabius

Translated by John Dryden
and
Revised by Arthur Hugh Clough

We have here had two lives rich in
examples, both of civil and military excellence. Let us first compare
the two men in their warlike capacity. Pericles presided in his
commonwealth when it was in its most flourishing and opulent condition,
great and growing in power; so that it may be thought it was rather the
common success and fortune that kept him from any fall or disaster. But
the task of Fabius, who undertook the government in the worst and most
difficult times, was not to preserve and maintain the well-established
felicity of a prosperous state, but to raise and uphold a sinking and
ruinous commonwealth. Besides, the victories of Cimon, the trophies of
Myronides and Leocrates, with the many famous exploits of Tolmides,
were employed by Pericles rather to fill the city with festive
entertainments and solemnities than to enlarge and secure its empire.
Whereas Fabius, when he took upon him the government, had the frightful
object before his eyes of Roman armies destroyed, of their generals and
consuls slain, of lakes and plains and forests strewed with the dead
bodies, and rivers stained with the blood of his fellow-citizens; and
yet, with his mature and solid cousels, with the firmness of his
resolution, he, as it were, put his shoulder to the falling
commonwealth, and kept it up from foundering through the failings and
weakness of others. Perhaps it may be more easy to govern a city broken
and tamed with calamities and adversity, and compelled by danger and
necessity to listen to wisdom, than to set a bridle on wantonness and
temerity, and rule a people pampered and restive with long prosperity
as were the Athenians when Pericles held the reins of government. But
then again, not to be daunted nor discomposed with the vast heap of
calamities under which the people of Rome at that time groaned and
succumbed, argues a courage in Fabius and a strength of purpose more
than ordinary.

We may set Tarentum retaken against Samos won by Pericles, and the
conquest of Eubœa we may well balance with the towns of Campania;
though Capua itself was reduced by the consuls Fulvius and Appius. I do
not find that Fabius won any set battle but that against the Ligurians,
for which he had his triumph; whereas Pericles erected nine trophies
for as many victories obtained by land and by sea. But no action of
Pericles can be compared to that memorable rescue of Minucius, when
Fabius redeemed both him and his army from utter destruction; a noble
act, combining the highest valor, wisdom, and humanity. On the other
side, it does not appear that Pericles was ever so overreached as
Fabius was by Hannibal with his flaming oxen. His enemy there had,
without his agency, put himself accidentally into his power, yet Fabius
let him slip in the night, and, when day came, was worsted by him, was
anticipated in the moment of success, and mastered by his prisoner. If
it is the part of a good general, not only to provide for the present,
but also to have a clear foresight of things to come, in this point
Pericles is the superior; for he admonished the Athenians, and told
them beforehand the ruin the war would bring upon them, by their
grasping more than they were able to manage. But Fabius was not so good
a prophet, when he denounced to the Romans that the undertaking of
Scipio would be the destruction of the commonwealth. So that Pericles
was a good prophet of bad success, and Fabius was a bad prophet of
success that was good. And, indeed, to lose an advantage through
diffidence is no less blamable in a general than to fall into danger
for want of foresight; for both these faults, though of a contrary
nature, spring from the same root, want of judgment and experience.

As for their civil policy, it is imputed to Pericles that he
occasioned the war, since no terms of peace, offered by the
Lacedæmonians, would content him. It is true, I presume, that Fabius,
also, was not for yielding any point to the Carthaginians, but was
ready to hazard all, rather than lessen the empire of Rome. The
mildness of Fabius towards his colleague Minucius does, by way of
comparison, rebuke and condemn the exertions of Pericles to banish
Cimon and Thucydides, noble, aristocratic men, who by his means
suffered ostracism. The authority of Pericles in Athens was much
greater than that of Fabius in Rome. Hence it was more easy for him to
prevent miscarriages arising from the mistakes and insufficiency of
other officers; only Tolmides broke loose from him, and, contrary to
his persuasions, unadvisedly fought with the Bœotians, and was slain.
The greatness of his influence made all others submit and conform
themselves to his judgment. Whereas Fabius, sure and unerring himself,
for want of that general power, had not the means to obviate the
miscarriages of others; but it had been happy for the Romans if his
authority had been greater, for so, we may presume, their disasters had
been fewer.

As to liberality and public spirit, Pericles was eminent in
never taking any gifts, and Fabius, for giving his own money to ransom
his soldiers, though the sum did not exceed six talents. Than Pericles,
meantime, no man had ever greater opportunities to enrich himself,
having had presents offered him from so many kings and princes and
allies, yet no man was ever more free from corruption. And for the
beauty and magnificence of temples and public edifices with which he
adorned his country, it must be confessed, that all the ornaments and
structures of Rome, to the time of the Cæsars, had nothing to compare,
either in greatness of design or of expense, with the luster of those
which Pericles only erected at Athens.